


Coming Home

by trishamart



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Season 3 Episode 15
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6323764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trishamart/pseuds/trishamart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Klaus and Hayley leave New Orleans with baby Hope, they head north, to Montana.  Its five years later and all the drama has died down.  They are happy living in Montana or at least somewhat.  Hope doesn't know anything that's going on, she thinks life is normal, but her parents know differently.  Elijah visits and tells them that they can come home now, all the enemies have been vanquished and everyone is living in peace.  Will they go home or will they stay anonymous?   Are all the enemies vanquished or will more come?  Will love conquer all?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work. Please enjoy and let me know if you have any requests or complaints. 
> 
> Sorry, the first chapter is very short, the other chapters will be longer.

Leaving was the hardest thing that the both of them had ever done and for Hayley that included giving birth. 

For Klaus, it was the fact that he had never run from a fight before, he had never been this scared in his life. Sure he had been scared for almost a thousand years from Mikael, but this time it was different. All of his enemies would come after him and all of his former sires wouldn’t protect him because they had no reason too. They were no longer bonded to him, no one was. No loyalty. And now he was on the run.

For Hayley, her whole life had turned into one big mess. First she got pregnant after a drunken one night stand by the bastard hybrid, not that she could regret it because she loved her daughter more than anything. Then she fell in love with the brother but the timing was never right and Klaus would have killed them both. Then the witches trapped her family and to save them she had to sacrifice her love in a marriage. She had fallen in love with Jackson and she could never regret marrying him because at the time it was the only thing she could do. Even though she loved Jackson, her heart had already belonged to another and he knew it and it was like a knife to the heart. Then Jackson was killed and right in front of Hayley too, his heart had been ripped out of his chest. Now she was here, running from her problems. 

So here they were, running from everything. Love, family, and a home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is basically a summary of what's been going on the past five years for Hayley and Klaus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if it's a bit awkward but I'm still learning.  
> I imagined that Hope would be very stubborn, knowing who her parents are but she is also a little girl who loves stories, especially fairy tales. I also imagined that Klaus could be a super dad if he put his mind to it, with nothing to do, I think he would go crazy with a new house. I also think Hayley needed a job to help her stop thinking about Elijah and Jackson.  
> I hope you enjoy and I will always welcome comments and suggestions.

After leaving New Orleans they had drove north, stopping only when the car needed gas or when Hope needed to be changed. It had taken them a few days to drive until they didn’t want to drive anymore. They had decided to go north and west, without a specific destination in mind. They only wanted to go somewhere no one would ever find them and no one would think that they would go west. Their car also broke down, not that it was Klaus’ fault (totally was). 

They ended up in Montana, in a small town in the south east corner, only a few hours from the Black Hills. The towns’ name was Tarik, Montana. It was a small town, smaller than small. 400 people, hardly big enough to be on a map. The downtown was two parallel streets that were each three blocks long. There were two diners, one restaurant/bar, and three full fledged bars. There was a small grocery store that had only the essentials, two churches that were rivals and a small K-12 grade school. The hospital consisted of 2 doctors, 6 nurses and four patient’s rooms and they did everything from fixing broken bones to birthing babies. There was one dentist and a dentist in training, 4 hair dressers and large farm supply store. 

It was a quaint town and the people were extremely friendly, not at all wary of the three new strangers. They welcomed them with open arms even though they hadn’t thought to stay in their town, it was just their way. After waiting 3 days for a new part and with Klaus ready to go, Hayley found a wonderful little log house and fell in love with it. She put her foot down, refusing to go anywhere else. Klaus threatened her with bodily harm but it was when Hope squealed and mumbled “hom” that he relented. They stayed.

It really was a beautiful house. It had a cute little kitchen that was closed in on all four walls, a small dining room off to one side and a large living room complete with a brick wood burning stove. There were three small bedrooms upstairs and two tiny bathrooms. It was small but it was perfect for them. Just the right size for the small, broken family. The best part of the property was that it was in the woods, about twenty miles outside of town. There was plenty of room to run and no one to suspect anything strange about the family. 

Klaus was very surprised to realize that they had been gone for three months until Hayley came down one day and said that she wanted to get a job.

“You want to get a job?” He thought that he had heard her wrong. Why would she want to get a job when there was no reason why? They had more than enough money to last them a decade.

“I’m bored, there is nothing to do around here.” Hayley looked around at the small kitchen, a frown on her face.

“What about your daughter? You just got her back and now you want to abandon her again?” He had barely finished speaking when a loud growl came from Hayley. It made him chuckle. Finally, a little spark. It was driving him crazy. The endless moping around and the sniffles he could hear at night. 

“Don’t you dare talk about me abandoning my daughter. If there had been a way, she never would have been out of my arms since I gave birth to her.” Hayley was restless. She had been so used to all the fighting and the endless worrying about her daughter. She was now free to not worry and she thought that she would be relived. But with the not worrying, and having nothing to do but recover, the heartache settled in. She was drowning in heartache.

She missed him, every moment of every day, she missed him. It was an ache down to the bone and no amount of holding her daughter in her arms took it away. She wanted to forget. Forget about her husband who was now murdered because of her. Forget about the fact that no matter how much she had loved her husband, she had loved another more. She didn’t know who she missed more or at least she pretended not to. She didn’t even allow herself to think his name, but it didn’t help. Every day brought more and more heartbreak. Everyone said that time heals all wounds but at this moment all she wanted to do was kill whoever said that. “I need something to do. I’m drowning here.” 

“Again, what about Hope?”

“Who are you again? Oh right, her father. You can watch her for a few hours by yourself.” After living alone with Klaus for three months, Hayley realized something that she never would have though possible. Klaus was a very handy man, he could cook and clean, chop wood, and fix every faucet in the house. 

The faucet have ganged up on them since they moved in, when they fixed one, another would break. It had driven Klaus crazy the first two days since they had to call a plumber every couple of hours. Finally he gave up and took the car into the next town over, which was a lot larger and held a bookstore. When he came back a few hours later, he brought with him a huge stack of books. 

Books on anything and everything to do with a house. Books on gardening and cooking, books on do it yourself projects and handyman’s guides to fixing everything in the house. He went straight up to his room and didn’t come down till the next morning. When he walked into the kitchen he looked extremely tired, like he hadn’t slept a wink, and extremely determined. By the end of the day every faucet had been replaced and they hadn’t had a problem since.

At the moment he was busy with plans for changing the house. He wanted to knock down the wall into the small dining room so the two small rooms would become one large room. He also wanted to knock down half of the wall that shared with the living room. He was a man on a mission. “I’m pullin’ your leg, do what ever you want. It’ll be a good change since you haven’t stopped blubbering since we got here.” He had turned to her, propping a hip on the kitchen counter that he had been standing at. 

With a glare on her face to match the smirk on his face, she wrapped her hands in his (plaid!) shirt and whipped him around and slammed him through the wall into the dining room. He broke the table as he came down and he looked up at her in shock. Sure, he knew she had a temper but after the past few months he thought that she had given up. “Now you have a job to do. Fix the kitchen, I’m gonna go find a job.” She walked towards the door with a skip in her step but stopped after she had opened the door “remember to give Hope a bottle at noon and burp her. Goodbye.”

A few hours later Hayley came back to the house with a smile on her face. She had gotten the job, not that she had been worried. So what if she had never been a waitress before, she could learn. Lying wasn’t a sin or maybe it was but whatever, she got the job. She walked in the front door and stopped, stunned. 

Hope was sitting in a highchair at the kitchen counter happily shoving cheerios into her mouth. Klaus was standing in front of the stove stirring something in a big pot but that wasn’t shocking news or at least no anymore. Instead it was the surroundings that stopped Hayley in her tracks, the whole wall that Hayley had thrown Klaus through was gone. There was a support column in the middle of the wall but it didn’t look like it needed to be there. The broken table that she had thrown him on was gone as well, leaving a space that was a lot larger than she had thought. 

“Wow. Nice work. I should throw you through walls more often.” She shut the door and set her purse on the floor next to the back door. 

“Did you get a job?” He still hadn’t turned around from the stove.

“Yes, I start on Monday.” Hope had finished her cheerios except for a few that had escaped onto the floor and was now reaching towards Hayley. Understanding the familiar gesture Hayley stooped to pick up her daughter and cuddle her next to her chest.

“Great.” Hayley couldn’t figure out what was wrong. There was something that wasn’t quite right about Klaus’ voice, some hidden emotion Hayley couldn’t decipher.  
Escaping the unknown tension in the kitchen Hayley took her daughter into the living room to sit on the floor with her daughter in her lap, Hayley whispered to her daughter “How was your day today, baby girl? Did you have a good day?” Hope leaned forward to grab at a stuffed giraffe in front of Hayley’s feet “I had a good day, I got a new job and I threw your dad through a wall. I’d say that was the best day I’ve had in a while.” Hope stuck the head of her giraffe into her mouth “I really needed this today, I’m sorry that I left you, I didn’t want to. I never want to leave you, I never want to have you out of my arms.” Hayley had tears in her eyes as she watched her daughter happily chopping on her stuffed animal “I’m sorry that I’m so broken. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard. For the first time in a long time, I think we’re gonna be okay.” Hayley quit talking to her daughter, she just happily held her on her lap for a while. Hope dropped her giraffe out of her mouth and reached towards her mother, resting her small hands on her chest. She leaned into her mother and looked up at her face with a face of love. 

Hope never complained, it helped that she a baby, she wouldn’t remember all the bad things that had happened to her. Hayley would die before anything happened to her daughter, she was the most important thing in her life. Her love for her daughter was never ending and surprised her sometimes. Hayley had never thought that she would be a mother and had been terrified when she found out that she was pregnant with a miracle baby. She was so glad to have been proven wrong and had been given the chance to be a mother.

After a while Hayley stood with her daughter and moved back into the kitchen to be enveloped in a cloud of spicy aroma. Jambalaya. You can take them out of New Orleans but you could never take the New Orleans out of them. “I’m sorry that I threw you through the wall.” She said it but she didn’t mean it, he had deserved to have been thrown through the wall but if her life was going to be better, she couldn’t hold onto all the old resentments. 

“No you’re not but I deserved it, love.” Klaus turned around for the first time since Hayley had entered the house. He had a look on his face that didn’t hold any great emotion, he didn’t look angry or anything close to it. He looked a bit guilty. “I know that our life has changed and I think that I was still stuck in the past. I don’t know what I’m doing, this is a new experience for me, trying to be normal. No intimidation, no killing.” Wow, that was something neither of them thought they would ever hear from his mouth. “Dinner is almost ready. Since we don’t have a table anymore, we’ll have to eat at the counter.” 

Hayley turned away from Klaus and reached up to the cabinet and took out two bowls and two glasses. She went to the freezer and popped a couple ice cubes from the tray and slid them into her glass and then she took out the red wine from the refrigerator and poured a glass for Klaus. When she walked over to him, she handed him the glass and she went to the sink and poured water into her glass. Klaus ladled jambalaya into the two bowls and placed them on the counter, reaching towards the spoons that were already on the counter. He handed one to her but didn’t let go, “Truce.”

“Truce.” It was as if they were a married couple, having dinner together while their daughter played with her sippy cup in her high chair. For the first time in a long time, they ate without fear and resentment. They ate dinner and talked about the room renovation.

\--------------------

Over the next four and a half years life hadn’t changed much. They still lived in Tarik, Montana. They still lived together in their small house though after a few more renovations, it was a lot larger than when they moved in. 

Klaus had really gotten into home renovations and becoming a handy man. After finishing the combining of the dining room and the kitchen, he had renovated the kitchen. Adding granite counter tops and brand new cabinets that he built from wood from the trees that he had cut down on their property. He added brand new appliances and when he finished it was an entirely new kitchen with an added eating nook. 

After the kitchen he added a small mud room off the back door and also built a bench to go in it. It was great when winter hit and they could leave their coats and boots in the small room instead of throwing them on the table. In the small barn that came with the house, that was a few yards from the back door, he added a workshop. He kept his tools there and built furniture that he then placed in the house such as the new breakfast table that replaced the one he broke. 

He caught the bug and after those few home renovations, he decided to add a few rooms, a bedroom/studio downstairs where he could paint and sleep, He converted two of the small bedrooms upstairs into one large bedroom for Hayley with an attached bathroom. She was upstairs with Hope while he was downstairs. 

Every spring he got the gardening bug and added flowers and plants that every winter would kill. He got a lawnmower so he could keep his lawn nice and pretty. Who knew he was actually OCD about his house. On a small patio that he had spent a whole week laying brink down, a year after they had moved to Montana, he made patio furniture so they could sit outside on a nice evening in the summer and fall months. 

When he finished with the house improvements, he started painting again. Every couple of days he would get bored and would take a hike in the woods. By hike he meant that he would run. Since they were hybrids they would take turns going wild and taking a run, though he ran more than she.

Each day was pretty much the same. He wake up and wish Hope a good day at school and Hayley a good day at work. He would then clean the kitchen or the living room. Then he would go outside and work in his workshop for a while or fix his plants or something. He would go for a hike or a run and go hunting. He would be home before three, when Hope would get home from school and then he would paint while Hope would play or do homework or would paint with him. Hayley would come home at four and then either she or he would make dinner. A couple nights a week he would go out and drink or hook up with a girl who lived in town. Life was simple and bring. He was basically a stay at home dad.

While Klaus stayed at home for the past four and a half years, Hayley was working. She had started out as a waitress but now she was the bar manager. She had never really had a home since she was 13 and had been kicked out by her adoptive parents except for those few precious months that she had lived at the compound or with Jackson. It was a good feeling, going home every night and having a nice warm home and food on the table.

Hayley loved her life now, she was happy, she was stable. She didn’t cry every night like she had when she had first arrived, now she only let her feelings out once a month. She and Klaus had agreed when they first arrived that they would not forget who they are, that they would embrace their hybrid side. So once a month, the full moon, she would take the night and run. She knew that Klaus went almost every day and she didn’t mind or feel jealous.

It took four years for Hayley’s heart to somewhat heal, to heal enough that she could go a full day without tears in her eyes. The tears almost never fell, just in the privacy of her shower would she ever let her tears fall. Time did help heal the heartbreak but she did miss him with an ache in her heart. Her heart ached and her body craved. 

Her days were pretty much the same as Klaus, boring and simple. She would get up before Hope and make breakfast for her and wake her up for school. Then she would take her daughter to school then do a few errands before her shift at work. She would usually get home around 4 or 5 in the afternoon and then she would play with her daughter before either she or Klaus would make dinner. 

Hope did better than either of them given that she didn’t know any other life. She was extremely happy though she would have preferred having a larger family. Every few weeks she would ask for a little sister and every time Hayley’s heart would break because she would have to explain that there would never be a sibling for her. To see the complete sadness on her young daughters face was heartbreaking, Hayley wanted to give her daughter everything but sometimes she couldn’t.

When Hope had started walking and talking, they decided to keep their secret from her, not because they were ashamed but because it was just easier. They didn’t have to worry about her talking about blood and death in school or to any of her friends. They did have a very normal life, a human life. One day when she was ready they would tell her the truth, they would tell her everything.

One day after being asked for months, Hayley said yes to the bartender at the bar where she worked. His name was Adam and he was a very nice man who had lived in Tarik all his life. He was safe, she didn’t have to worry about her heart. 

One the night of her first day in years she was standing in front of a mirror in her room while Hope was lying on her bed. Hope’s dog was also lying next to her daughter, almost dwarfing the small girl. Rudolf was a stray dog that Hope had found outside last winter a few days before Christmas. He had been starving and every rib was showing. Hope fell in love instantly and begged her parents continuously until they gave in. 

“Where are you going again?” Hope was pouting, she always wanted her parents to be together even though they had told her no. Hope really just wanted to be like everyone else, all of her friends had a mom and a dad and brothers and sister. Everyone else’s parents were married and happy and her parents barely stayed in the same room together even though they lived together.

“I told you, I have a date. I don’t know where he’s taking me.” Hayley smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt then pinched a piece of lint in her fingers and tossed it away. Satisfied with her effort she turned to her daughter for the final verdict. “What do you think?”

Hayley could tell Hope was upset. “Why don’t you marry daddy? Mommies and Daddies should be married.” It didn’t matter how many times they told her, she would never give in. 

“Your daddy and I are never going to be married, we don’t see each other that way. We are friends and that is the end of this discussion, for real. No more pouting about your dad and I.” Hope pouted just like her dad, it was scary how much they looked alike when they did that. “Hope. Promise me. No more complaining.”  
Hope sighed, “I promise.” 

Hayley knew that the conversation was far from over, she always made Hope promise to not complain anymore but a few days later Hope would be at it again. This was the only way to show Hope that her father and her mother were not going to end up together, by dating. “Okay, up. We’re going downstairs, your dad is waiting.” Shooing her and Rudolf from her bed, Hayley looked one last time in the mirror.

What she saw wasn’t anything new. Her black cardigan covered her arms down to her wrists and hung to her waist. Her white tank top still had a small coffee stain on it that no matter how much washing, never came out. Her purple skirt fell to her knees and her black sandals were strapped to her feet. Even after dressing this way for years, Hayley still wasn’t used to it or comfortable with it. She missed her leather jacket and her grunge look clothes, but most of all she missed her boots.  
The only thing that hadn’t really changed was her hair, it was still the same dark brown and still hung in curls down her back. She had changed almost everything about herself except for her hair. A couple years ago she had almost cut it all off but when she got to the hairdresser she chicken out, she couldn’t do it. She had to have a least one thing that didn’t change.

Turning on her heel, Hayley went downstairs to where her daughter was now sitting on the floor playing with her dolls. It took a couple moments for Hayley to see that Rudolf was lying on the couch with his feet up. No matter how many times she had told that dog to stay off the furniture, he just bats her away, not caring. Klaus wasn’t in the room, but a soft shushing was coming from his room. After living together for almost five years, Hayley came to know that sound very well, Klaus was painting. 

Klaus was standing before a black canvas when Hayley walked through his door. “You ready for your date, love?” He turned his head to smirk at her but turned back around just as quick. 

“I’m leaving now.” She knew that Klaus wouldn’t be serious tonight. He couldn’t, she was his toy to poke fun at, to make fun of.

When she walked back into the living room, she could hear him coming behind her. “Is he picking you up?”

“No.” She grabbed her coat from the hall closet. Although it was late spring in Montana, it could still get pretty chilly at night. 

“No? He asks you on a date and then he doesn’t pick you up. If I’m not mistaken, men usually pick up their dates or at least in my experience.” Hayley turns to look at him, standing against the doorway into the living room from his bedroom.

“What experience would that be?”

“I have dated, you know. Sometimes I think that I’ve been dating for centuries.” He smirks at her over their daughter head, who is now up and looking between her parents. 

“I’ll be home later.” Before leaving she goes to kiss Hope on top of her head, then picks up her purse and leaves through the front door.

Klaus picks up their daughter and walks outside with her in his arms. Her small little arms wrapped around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist. “Say good luck to mommy. Maybe she’ll get lucky tonight.” Before Hayley could throw him the finger, he walks back inside while Hope says good bye.

“So what do you want to do tonight?”

\------------------

That was almost six months ago and life hadn’t changed much since then. Klaus was still painting and being an ass, while simultaneously sneaking his ‘girlfriend’ out at dawn. At least Hayley had the decency to not do it in the house, in the same house where their daughter lived, in the next room. 

Hayley knew that she would never love Adam. She liked him a lot, but she would never love him. As much as she would like to deny it, her heart still belonged to another. It was hard to believe everything that had happened in last seven years. 

Some days she wished she had never left New Orleans but she had to go. It was just too hard, knowing that they could never be together. It was easier being hundreds of miles away. Every day she wished Jackson was still alive but she wasn’t sure if they would still be together. Maybe, maybe not. She loved Jackson, she would always love Jackson but he was dead now. She would never betray his love and go back, she could only go forward and hope that someday, somehow she would love again. 

Adam was a very nice man and although Hope didn’t like him very much when they first met, she liked him now. Turns out he was very talented when it came to doing voices. The first time Hope met him, she was very rude to him but she was also holding a storybook in her hand. Adam acted out the entire book in different voices while Hope sat there, trying not to love it but in the end she was laughing and trying to get him to teach her. Since then, every time she saw him, she had a different book and she would get him to act out the story with her. It became a good relationship.

It was almost five years to the date when the there was a knock on the door. Hayley was at work and since it was a Saturday, Klaus was watching Hope. When he opened the door, he was happy because his brother was finally here.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does Hayley's heart still ache for Elijah's?

Hayley pulled her car into the driveway in front of the house that had been her sanctuary for the last five years. She needed that sanctuary today. Today had started off bad and had gotten continuously worse throughout the day. 

This morning when she gave Hope her breakfast, Hope had accidentally overturned her cereal bowl, all over Hayley’s pants. Hayley had already been running late for work, she should have just let Klaus worry about Hope’s breakfast, but as usual he was fast asleep and refused to wake up. By the time she got upstairs and changed and into her car after preparing another bowl for Hope she was an hour late for work. When she got to work, the diner was packed and they were already down two people who had gotten food poisoning the night before. She got her ass chewed out, then she had to work a double shift. 

By the end of her shift:  
• Kicked by horrible children,  
• Burned by a hot plate that she dropped immediately and the plate broke and food splattered her pants,  
• Puked on by a man still drunk from the night before,  
• And nearly groped by a huge man who happened to be the mayor of the town.

It was the worst day that she had in a long time. As soon as turned off her car, the tears that had been threatening all day, finally fell down her cheeks. She didn’t have to do this, she was a hybrid. She was the strongest and most feared creature in the world and she spent her day getting continuously spilled on. There was syrup soaked into her pants, long healed bruises on her shins and the smell of puke reeked from her shirt. 

Why did she ever think that she would want to be a waitress? She was better than this, or was. This was her life now, she was no longer queen of the wolves, she was Cinderella minus the prince. How she wished that she could be saved from her life now, but she choose this life. They didn’t need the money, but she wanted to work, to forget about things left forgotten. 

She could hear Hope happily turning the pages of a book as she read the story aloud. Rudolf, no doubt laying on the couch with his feet in the air, listening to his young master’s voice. Faintly she could hear the telling sounds of Klaus painting. They were untouched by her horrible day, thou she wished she had a big plate of something sticky to throw at him. Maybe she would go for a run tonight, it had been two weeks since she last turned but she needed to let off a little steam. 

Wiping the tears from beneath her eyes, checking her face in a mirror. Her eyes were a bit red but would fade in a few minutes, long enough for her to get upstairs and into a shower before she made dinner. As she walked up the stairs to the front door, she heard something that made her heart stop. A man’s voice joined Hope’s laughter, a voice that wasn’t Klaus’. No, it was a voice that she hadn’t heard in five years, a voice that she had both longed to hear and feared of hearing. 

What was she to do? She couldn’t go inside, he no doubt had heard her blubbering in her car for the past ten minutes. She didn’t want to see him, she wasn’t ready. She still thought of him whenever she did anything, he was the thought at the forefront of her mind except for Hope. She thought that she had decades or centuries before she would have had to endure that man, not merely years. Yet in her heart she wanted him with a passion, a passion that never went away, no matter what she did. She had to face him, if not to stop her heart trying to beat out of her chest to rejoin the heart she left behind.

Taking a deep breathe, she opened the door and was assaulted by memories. The first time she ever saw him was first, being instantly attracted to the brother of the man who had knocked her up. The time she had almost lost Hope in his arms while standing in a pool, wishing for him to kiss her. Their first kiss after she had almost been killed by his father in a nightmare, when she had realized that he felt the same burn in his heart as she did in hers. The one and only time they had given into their love and had a passion filled night, enough to fulfill dreams for the past five years. Saying goodbye to him, with her heart breaking, to marry the man that became her husband. Seeing him every full moon, with her daughter in his arms when she was cursed by Dahlia. Talking like old friends on the balconies of their homes, across the street from each other. Wishing her heart had felt more pain when Jackson had been killed in front of her eyes, but couldn’t because her heart hadn’t been hers’ since before she had met Jackson. Telling him that she couldn’t be with him because of Jackson and leaving him behind as she left with Klaus and her daughter. 

Each and every memory flew in front of her eyes, every kiss, every touch, every caress filled her mind. Robbing her of breath and making her heart beat like a war drum. She didn’t realize that she had closed her eyes when she had opened the door. When she opened them she didn’t see him standing before her, welcoming her home. 

No he was with Hope in the living room but when she stepped into the room, she saw him sitting with Hope on his lap. He was wearing his traditional suit, his hair closely cropped to his head. Seeing his head bowed with Hop as they focused on the story book on her lap. He looked like a father and her heart clenched at the thought. He would have made a wonderful father, the very best.

As if he could sense the direction of her thoughts, he raised his eyes to hers and her heart clenched once again. She fell in love all over again, falling deep into those beautiful brown eyes that seemed to see into her soul. He had a genuine smile on his face and he clutched Hope closer to his chest, as if he desired to be her father. Things would have been so much easier if she had been his. A child brought up with loving parents, who loved each other more than life itself. 

“Hello Hayley.” His voice broke the tension that had slipped into the room, the moment she had heard his laugh. His voice still possessed the deep timbre that made her legs tremble, the purr in his voice, a caress that went deep into her heart. 

“Hello Elijah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's so short, but the next one will be much longer. I hope you like the story. I am a huge Hayley and Elijah fan and a hopeless romantic. Thanks for all the kudos and comments. Please let me know how you like this chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hayley is finally facing the pain that she had buried years before. Her and Elijah also speak for the first time, not talking about what they want to talk about but that's to come. I'm really bad about summarizing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope is an emotional child because of the vampire blood. Please review!:)

Elijah couldn’t believe that his eyes were perceiving what his heart had been waiting for since the moment she left his sight. Standing with her hair pulled back from her face, her black shirt supporting a large spot down the front, she held a purse in one hand and the other fell down to stop at her thigh. She looked beautiful and wonderful and his heart threatened to burst from his chest.

He held Hope in his arms and though he had ached to hold her for years, his heart wanted to hold Hayley in her place. He knew Hayley was hesitant at his arrival, Klaus had said that he hadn’t told Hayley of his brother’s arrival, claiming a surprise. He had gone along with the plan because he had wanted to see Hayley once more, though he knew that though years had passed, the past was still present in their hearts. 

Her eyes held desire in them, matching his own, but replaced by pain in seconds. She turned to walk away from them, Hope not realizing that her audience had wavered. The big dog on the couch, with his legs in the air, twitched his tail but made no move to get up once Hayley left the room. He could hear her light steps on the stairs as they climbed to the second floor and followed her with his ears as she moved into a back room at the rear of the house. 

He couldn’t get up, he wanted to, but didn’t want to. His emotions confused at the immediate joy he had felt as soon as he had heard Hayley’s car in the driveway. They had all changed in the last five years, more wounds separated them.

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Hayley didn’t remember climbing the stairs to her room, the last thing she remembered was looking Elijah in the eye. She had removed herself from the room, but his gaze still followed her every movement. She stopped before her bed, sitting down to catch her breath. Her heart still had not ceased it’s thundering, she felt light headed at its exertion.

She sat on her bed, still in the clothes that held the badges of honor that she had earned today. The stickiness of her pants and the stench of her shirt forgotten since she saw Elijah in her living room. She held her hands in front of her face, lost in memories of the blood that had graced them when last she saw Elijah. Death always followed whenever they were together.

She clenched her hands in front of her face, lowering her face so her knuckles dug into her eye sockets. She could not smell blood but she felt it, felt the heat, felt the stickiness of it, felt the hunger that she had not allowed herself to experience in years. She had not killed in years, not even feeding from a human since they moved to this town. She had tried to cleanse the pain and death from her life but here it comes for her again.

She had to get up, she had to clean up. As the thought of cleaning up, she remembered her day. She remembered that her pants held syrup and puke covered her shirt. Hayley stood up, moving towards her shower to wash off the horrible day, hoping that it also cleaned the pain out of her heart. 

The water was scalding when she stepped into the flow, yet she did not feel it. Her mind still held the memories of her past, her hands still holding the blood she had spilt. Blood poured from her hands, never ending, it flowed from her fingers as if from a faucet. It mixed with the water that pounded on her back. She could almost smell the distinctive iron scent from all the blood she had spilt. 

She took her yellow loofah and scrubbed at her hands, rubbing them raw. She then shifting her focus to her body, continuing her assault upon her own body. She scrubbed the blood of victims but soon her own blood joined the water. She froze, no longer imagining the iron scent but smelling her own blood. It slapped her out of her thoughts, realizing that blood did not flow from her hands but gathered at abrasions that she had inflicted upon her skin. She finally felt the scalding water and immediately turned the water off. Her burning skin welcomed the cool air, she turned the water on again but this time the water was cool. She washed her hair as the abrasions healed and her skin cooled. Tears joined the water this time, quiet sobs racking her body. The water flowed off her body, taking the tears from her eyes and washing the blood from her hands. She let go of the pain that had been at the back of her heart since they came, not knowing that it was there until she saw Elijah in the flesh. He brought back the pain but this time instead of blaming him, she welcomed the pain. Embracing it, embracing all the pain she had experienced since she had been brought into the web of the Mikaelson family. She held fault within the events that brought her family down. Maybe it was fate, maybe she was destined to be alone, to love and be loved in return but from afar. It was for the best, between the two of them, enough blood had passed to fill hundreds of humans.  
She whispered to herself, words of encouragement. Words to turn off the water. Words to wrap herself in a towel. Words to go into her room and rifle through her clothes to find something that was far from who she had been in her former life. She didn’t hear a subtle whoosh that signaled that she was not alone.

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Klaus stood before Hayley for moments before she realized that she was not alone. She was wrapped in a towel, a pile of clothes before her, waiting to be put on. Her skin held a rosy tint but instead of a light pink, it was a few shaded less than blood red. She looked miserable.

“How was your day, darling?” He smirked at her, knowing that Elijah could hear every words that passed between their lips. She narrowed her eyes at him, a look of anger passing between her eyes now.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She spoke in a soft voice but she could whisper for all Elijah could hear. 

“Did I not mention my brother visiting us?” He looked down at his fingers, feigning disinterest. He picked at a cuticle with a smirk upon his face.

“It must have slipped your mind.” At her accusation, he looked up at her. There was a little fire building in her eyes. A fire that had not raged since they had left.  
“I didn’t think that you would mind, given history.” He was baiting her, wishing that she would finally acknowledge the truth that she had hid from her life, taking a part of herself in the process. 

She sighed, dropping her towel and turning to get dressed. “Please leave, Klaus.” She reached towards a pair of underwear but didn’t look at him as she put them on.  
“As you wish, love.” He knocked on her door frame three times then turned to go downstairs but before he left completely he said over his shoulder, “Hurry up, I’m hungry.”

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Hayley finished dressing and headed downstairs to begin making dinner for her daughter and unfortunately Klaus and his guest. At the foot of the stairs Hayley looked around her to make sure that the hallway was clear, satisfied she continued into the kitchen. Through a window in the breakfast room, Hayley could see outside where Hope was running around with Rudolf while Elijah and Klaus stood talking. 

After such a day, the last thing she really wanted to do was cook dinner but Hope had been begging for her favorite food, spaghetti. It was easy and really took no thought. Her mind wandered while she heated water in a huge pot, fleeting from thought to thought. Thoughts passed so quickly that it was almost as if her mind was devoid of thought, she instead stood staring at something insignificant.

When she heard a cough behind her, she shook out her mind and turned to Elijah. He stood there as if he had been there for several minutes, maybe watching her or probably subtly couching to gain her attention. His hand were shoved in his trousers, nothing out of place, his suit in perfect order. He didn’t speak, for fear of not knowing what to say or waiting for her to speak first, they stood there watching each other. Neither knew what to say, how to begin a conversation that had been long overdue. 

Hayley decided to start off with a soft subject. “How’s Rebecca?” She knew she must be well because if something had happened, Klaus would have told her, hopefully.

He stood still for a few more moments before speaking. Shaking his head as if riding it of thoughts, he moved his eyes from Hayley’s’ but a few moments later, they were back. “She’s good.” He stopped speaking while his body moved closer into the room, now standing a couple feet away. “Her and Marcel. They’re actually getting married.” He had a smile on his face, a true smile, genuinely happy for his sister.

Rebecca getting married, that’s a bit of a shock, if Klaus knew he would kill Marcel. Although he probably did know, the two defiantly kept in touch. Hayley had never really minded, he never told her anything not that she expected he would. He had this thing about talking about anything, he was very protective. “Wow. I’m kind of surprised to hear that knowing the history. Klaus is okay with that?” Hayley didn’t give two shits about what Klaus was okay with, but she really didn’t want to lose Hope’s aunt because of Klaus’ intense hatred of anyone else’s happiness. 

“We shall see.” An awkward silence followed his last words. 

Hayley was distracted with the water that was now boiling. She added a large pinch of salt and the pasta noodles, stirring once. She grabbed a glass jar of pasta sauce from the cabinet and the oven beeped, startled she accidently dropped the jar. Elijah grabbed the jar seconds before it would have hit, saving her from yet again from splattered pants. She guessed that she had turned the oven on when she turned the stove on, probably for bread. 

Elijah set the jar on the counter but didn’t wrap her in his arms that she either did or did not want. On one hand, it had been far too long since she had been held in his arms but on the other, it would just complicate matters even more. “Feeling a bit anxious?”

“I’m fine.” She was angry with him, for what reason she didn’t quite understand. She wanted him but she didn’t want to want him. Almost ripping the freezer door from its hinges, she pulled out a box of frozen bread. Making more noise than necessary she grabbed a baking sheet and started breaking the frozen bread apart to place on the sheet. She didn’t have to look at him to know that he felt as anxious as her. It was evident in the tension of the room that seemed to follow them where ever they went.

“This house is beautiful, though I am surprised that Niklaus would live in such a small town.” He had turned away from her to look around the room, noting the things that made the house so homey. 

“It was Hope. We drove by and he stopped when Hope gave a shout. She fell in love with it instantly, I fell a few hours later. Klaus took some time to convince.” After putting the pan in the oven and placing a timer on the counter that ticked away, she turned to him. Noticing that he had picked up a coloring book on the table along with several broken crayons. “It’s not much, but its home.” She wanted to defend her safe haven but the words didn’t come.

“It’s wonderful.” He said so quietly that had she been anything other than supernatural, she wouldn’t have been able to hear him. He voice held an edge of wonder and tinge of sadness. He rubbed the broken crayons between his fingers, the wax forming a film on the skin. 

She was done with avoiding the questions that laid before her, so she cut to the chase. “Why are you here, Elijah? I was under the impression that Klaus was in ‘danger’.” She held up her fingers in air quotes when she said danger. 

“It’s done.” He hadn’t turned back to her, his attention now focused on a stuffed rabbit on top of the table. 

“What’s done?” Elijah had turned towards her but at the same time she turned her back on him to face the stove. 

“All threats are gone except the normal ones, you can come back home now.” Her heart broke at the sentiment. The hope in his voice lifted her heart at the same time as it fell. Did she want to go ‘home’? Did she have a home? Sure, there had been multiple homes, multiple destinations before she had reached New Orleans. Actually the longest she had ever lived anywhere since she was 13 and kicked out of her home was New Orleans. It was where she had been born, where her parents had lived but was it her home?

“Home? What home? You mean the place where my husband was murdered? Where my parents were killed? Where I have experienced the whole range of emotions that I could barely look at myself in the mirror? The only home I have is with Hope, anywhere she is, that is my home.” Tears had formed in her eyes again, her vision so blurry that when she reached for the pot on the stove with the pasta water, she accidentally burned her hand. She had been so focused on being busy that she forgot that the pan gets extremely hot and you have to use pot holders when picking it up. “Shit.” Her eyes smarted with actual physical pain. She had to step away from the stove for a few moments but a few moments was all it took for Elijah to step in to grab her hands and see the red flesh.

“Are you okay?” Elijah rubbed his thumbs over the reddened flesh and kept rubbing until after the skin had healed. Every swipe of his finger shot her temperature up a few degrees. 

“I’m fine, just a minor burn already healed.” She ripped her hands out of his hands and grabbed the pot holders next to the stove and picked the pot up from the stove. She walked over to the sink and drained the pasta before pouring the now drained pasta back into the pan. He attempted to speak again but Hayley gave him a look that said not to speak. She didn’t want to fight right now, she just wanted to get dinner ready for her daughter. Dinner was finished after she pulled the bread from the oven. “Can you tell Hope and Klaus that dinner is ready?” She didn’t wait for an answer, instead taking the bowl of spaghetti and the bowl of bread to the table. While Elijah left the room, Hayley did a few deep breaths, trying to get her pulse back under control. She cleared the table of Hope’s things and but the time that she placed four plates on the table, Elijah walked in with Hope and Klaus. “Hope did you wash your hands?”

Hope almost said yes, lying to her mother but at the look her mother gave her she decided on the truth. “No.” She dragged her feet to the kitchen sink, pulling the stool out from under so she could step up to wash her hands. 

Hayley poured a glass of milk for Hope and another for herself. Klaus grabbed a bottle of wine from the wine rack and uncorked it, pouring a glass for himself and another for Elijah. When they sat down at the table, Hayley sitting across from Klaus with Hope of her left and Elijah on her right. Hayley scooped a bit onto Hope’s plate before cutting in into little bites and placing a piece of bread on the side. They didn’t bother with grace, they never did except on special occasions.

Conversation at dinner consisted of anything and everything about Hope. She talked throughout dinner, informing Elijah about everything that he had missed. She had been ecstatic at learning that she had family, though she was confused on why it had been kept from her. She talked about her teacher Miss. Taylor, about her best friends Kimmy and Danny, and explained every birthday party that she had ever been to. She talked and talked, leaving no room for other conversation. After every third bite she would slip a couple noodles down to the dog sitting at her feet, trying but failing to keep it from her mother’s sight.

“Hope, how many times have I told you not to feed Rudolf from the table?” Hayley asked her daughter with a stern voice, she had told her more times than she could count but it was like it went in one ear and out the other. 

“Mooom.” Hope gave Hayley her best puppy dog eyes after whining her name. 

“Hooope.” Hayley whined back.

“He was giving me sad eyes again. I had to.” Klaus had a smirk on his face when Elijah looked at him, something telling him that this was a common occurrence.

“Hope, please stop feeding your dog your food, it’s not good for him.”

“Sorry.” Her face fell and for the first time it looked like she might actually cry. Hope was in a period very much like the terrible twos but worse. Every time she didn’t get her way, she stomped off to her room and slammed the door, although this was the first time that she had said sorry.

“Are you finished?” At her nod and before waiting for her mother to excuse her, she was up and out of her chair and running towards the living room with Rudolf following close behind. Hayley breathed a sigh of happiness because Hope didn’t start crying or screaming. Maybe she was finally coming out of it? Hayley didn’t even want to think about what Hope was going to be like when she became a teenager if this was what six looked like. 

“Well that was a first or has she learned how to scream silently?” He smirked and propped his hands together in front of his face, his elbows settles on the table.

“Is it always like this?” Elijah looked back and forth between the two parents, Hayley looked worn out and Klaus looked happy.

“I think that she hasn’t quite learned how to control her emotions yet. The instability of the vampire blood is screwing with them.” Hope was a naturally rebellious child and extremely stubborn, both gifts her parents resented giving her. They could control her most of the time but sometimes it got to be too much. With a child as special as Hope with the blood of vampires, werewolves and witches running through her veins, it was a wonder how she even had any good days. 

“Yes let’s just hope that she has learned to control them before she becomes a teenager.” Klaus shook his head and shuddered at the idea. The thought of a hybrid as powerful as Klaus shuddering at the thought of his daughter getting more emotions almost made Hayley laugh but she controlled herself. Their table had lasted for five years even since Klaus had made it after Hayley broke the other one. 

“At least today was a good day.” The parents shook their heads together, joined in the sharing of parental responsibility. “Well on that note, I should start cleaning up. I’m going for a run tonight so she’s your responsibility.” She looked at Klaus at the last sentence, not giving him a choice.

“Tonight? Have you forgotten the days of the month, it’s not a full moon tonight. In fact it’s not for another week.” He smirked at her, she knew that the full month was next week but she wanted to go tonight. 

Hayley had already gotten up from the table grabbing plates and taking them to the sink. Klaus’ back was turned to her, so she grabbed a towel, twisting it around. “I know that but I’m going tonight.” She snapped the towel at the back of his neck getting a wince in response. “I’ve had a bad day and I need to let off some steam.”  
She took the rest of the plates from the table but before she got to the sink Klaus got a gleam in his eye. “Ah, so you’re going to run into town. If I’m not mistaken the bartender isn’t working tonight.” 

Pissed off, Hayley threw the dishes into the sink, breaking them and the ones she had already placed in it. She then turned on her heel and stalked from the room and up to her own room, but before she slammed her door, she could faintly hear Elijah speak.

“Bartender?” There was a tinge of sadness to his whisper to Klaus.

“Yeah, her pet.” Hayley slammed her door so hard that cracks appeared in the wood in response.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hayley has just gotten home and decides to drown herself in a bottle of tequila, but with the numbness of the mind comes the cravings without control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like this chapter. It's the first time I've ever written a dream sequence before and a kissing scene. The dream scene is from season one's episode, A Closer walk with Thee. In the episode they kiss but she is also pregnant, in the dream she starts out pregnant but then isn't anymore. Since it's a dream I think that's okay. Please review. :)

When Hayley got home that night, long after everyone had gone to bed, she went straight to the cabinet above the refrigerator. It was there were her secret stash of liquor was. She didn’t break into it often, only when she was in dire need. She thought that the run would’ve helped but it didn’t. It might have taken the curb off but now that she was here, the need came back stronger than before. 

She had already taken four shots when she felt the buzz. Her mind felt fuzzy but for the first time in a long time, it felt clear. She knew what she wanted. She wanted to be held again. She wanted her heart to feel like it was going to explode, not from sadness but need.

With her next shot, she sat down at the table. A few more after that and she laid her head down on the tabletop, closing her eyes. She wished for sleep to overtake her, because she knew that this time, sleep would be dreamless. It always was when she was drunk. Something about her brain trying to deal with all the alcohol that it was too busy to make up dreams.

This time she wasn’t so lucky. The dreams came again, stronger than before.

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_She was back in the compound, pregnant with Hope. Father Kieran had just died and been put to rest. Hayley had survived being almost killed in a dream but her baby’s grandfather. She pondered everything that had happened that day. Almost dying had given her a new perspective, she had to be stronger. The only way that their family could survive was if they stayed together._

_So she moved back into the compound. She moved back into the place where her child would be raised, with her family. With her father, her mother, her uncle, and hopefully her aunt would come back some day. She felt sad that she wasn’t with her wolves, they were also her family and she missed the comfortability that she always felt with them._

_She standing in the nursery that her daughter will inhabit when she is born. It is beautiful, full of everything that a child could ever need. A warm, safe bed. Clothes that she would never have to worry about affording, because her child’s father only wanted the best. A painting by Klaus hung on one wall, a painting that showed both sides of her parents, in equal harmony. She would one day be both, join the family in their war that they have been fighting for hundreds of years._

_Maybe one day they wouldn’t have to live this way. Maybe someday they could be truly happy, truly free from everything. They were vampires and hybrids, doomed to spend forever on this earth, short of dying. Hayley wanted what she had always wanted, a family. A family to be there in the good times and in the bad. Was this family the ticket?_

_Was this to be her life for the next thousand years? Watching your friends die, fighting for your life at every turn._

_She’s standing at the window, looking out at the street below her. At the party that is still raging for Father Kieran. She felt indebted to him, he had done so much to help her pack. She was sorry to have seen him die and she couldn’t help but hate the witches for what they had done, for everything they had done. He was a good man, an honest man who got caught up in a world were the good always die. He hadn’t deserved to die, he should have lived._

_Her heart feels sadness and a weight that she hadn’t really experienced before, sadness for the death of a child. He might have been old enough to be her father but he was still someone’s child. She was going to be a mother, she was going to see a child in everyone. She was going to see her own child in every person that she saw._

_How can so much pain and tragedy affect one’s life before it starts to change them? She had been a werewolf for years, she was no stranger to death. She had been abandoned not once but twice by people she thought would love her forever. Her birth parents had given her up, now she knew that they had done it for her own protection but it still hurts all the same. Her adoptive parents had taken her in, treated her like their own child but they had been afraid of her, afraid of what she would become._

_She only hoped her daughter would not have to go through this. Through anything painful and life changing. She wanted to protect her daughter from everything._  


_As she stood there watching out the window, caught up with the emotions inside her heart and her head, a body filled the room. She knew it was Elijah from his scent but even if she hadn’t have been able to smell him, she would’ve known him anywhere. It was a feeling she always got whenever he was near._

_It was hard to explain, the way she felt about him. She loved him but she didn’t want to. She could tell that he loved her as well but he was as confused, if not more as her. Neither of them knew what to do, they were fighting everything inside them that said ‘go for it, be happy’. They didn’t just have their own happiness to answer to but other such as her daughter’s when she was born and Klaus. They couldn’t do anything, no matter what they wanted to._

_“If I had died and someone threw a party, I would be pissed.” If she had died this day she knew that Elijah wouldn’t have been able to get past it. He had placed all his hopes on her and her child to be the redeemers for his family but if they had died, there wouldn’t have been a way to control the depths of their despair. Klaus would have gone on a rampage, killing anything and everything._

_She knew that there wouldn’t have been a party for her, there would have been blood and death in remembrance. Aside from Elijah, Klaus and her wolf friends, there wouldn’t be anyone else that would care of she had died. Many wanted her dead for the baby that she carried._

_“You almost did.” His voice cracked, there was an emotion in his voice that she had never heard before in his voice. “In a thousand years, I can’t recall a time I’ve felt so frightened.” Right then Hayley was sure of his feelings toward her. He didn’t have to tell her for she already knew. He loved her as much as she loved him. If it had been him who had almost died today, she didn’t know what she would have done. He had become a part of her, a piece of her heart that had wormed its way in without her knowing. When they had first met, of course she had thought him attractive and he had been so wonderfully nice to her. He had promised to keep her safe, from everything. They had started out as friends, maybe even more than that. She didn’t know when it had changed, when their hearts had started to beat as one. She didn’t know the exact moment when she had fallen in love with him. All she knew was that right now, in this moment she didn’t want to fight it anymore._

_He had turned away from her, ready to leave. Did he love her? If he truly did, then why was he turning away from her? If it was respect for Klaus, she knew that Klaus would not have given the same respect as Elijah. Klaus would have just taken what he wanted. Elijah didn’t expect it, he didn’t expect to be loved back for his family was his one true love._

_She had to stop him. She had to let him know that she felt that same. That she loved him, all of him. The good, they bad, the ugly. She knew but she didn’t care. They all had blood on their hands. She turns to him as he gets a few steps from her. Too many steps too far. She wanted him next to her forever. “Elijah.”_

_All she spoke was his name but that one word held all the emotion needed. That word held all the love that they have tried to keep back. It unleashed everything. One moment they are looking at each other with the same expressions on their face and the next they are crashed together. They were pressed so tightly together that you could not tell where one started and the other ended._

_Their mouths were feeding off each other. One kiss leading into the next until they were spent and gasping. The broke apart but still looked each other in the eye. Hayley saw a tinge of regret in his eyes. He was going to try to pretend this never happened because of Klaus. Because of his dedication to his brother, Elijah would forever be controlling his instincts. His instinct to love, to throw caution to the wind and just live were curbed. He was pulling away. He almost got away if she had not kissed him again. A small, chaste, peck on the lips but that is all it took._

_That one kiss broke his resolve, one kiss he could handle but two he could not. After all he was only a man, extremely determined and relentlessly hungry. Love had only come around for him only twice before but this time, it was different. This time he fell in love with someone as broken as him. Someone who could understand him better than even his brother._

_His arms came around Hayley in a lover’s embrace, her hand moving around his head. They did not kiss, they only looked into each other’s eyes. They saw reflections in them, their gazes never flinching or blinking. Slowly, ever so slowly they inched their lips toward each other again, keeping eye contact until at last their lips met. They stood still for a few moments before their passion over took them._

_Soon they were trying to devour each other whole, their mouths open and mating. All of their problems and constraints melted away as well as her belly. She did not care for she held Elijah in her arms._

_This was only a dream she knew in the back of her mind. They were not together for really, this was only a fantasy. A fantasy that she would hold on to as dearly as a memory because this is all they could ever have. Dreams and hopes and wishes but never to come true for they made a vow. She didn’t care that is was only a dream because she was going to enjoy it and enjoy it she did._

_As they met continuously, Hayley moved her hands to the front of his tie, working at the knot that held it together. Next came the suit jacket that she pushed off of his shoulders. They pulled apart for a few moments, catching their breaths, but Hayley whipped off her t-shirt and passion overtook them again._

_They moved out of her daughter’s nursery and into Hayley’s own bedroom, making a beeline for the bed. Stopping just short of it, Hayley took Elijah’s button down dress shirt in two fists and ripped it apart, the buttons flying in all directions. The shirt slipped down his back to the floor. They reached for each other, finally feeling their bare skin touched together._

_They stood there for a few moments, enjoying the way their flesh seemed to welcome the others touch. They were soon caught up in the passion again, this time making it onto the bed. Elijah resting on top of Hayley, her legs wrapped around his waist. Their hearts were beating against their chest, beating against the other heart in perfect synchronization._

_Hayley hands were running over Elijah’s back and into his hair, while his ran over her body. Her hands clutched his head while he disengaged his mouth from her, earning a dissatisfied moan. She wanted his mouth back on hers but a satisfied moan made up for it. Her lips reattached to her neck and traveled down wards. She clutched his head to her chest and between each kiss he whispered her name growing louder each kiss. “Hayley.” It was perfect. “Hayley.” Her skin puckered at his touch and his kiss. “Hayley.” “Don’t stop,” she moaned. "Hayley." He was kissing between her breasts now, reaching his hand beneath her to reach for the clasp. “Hayley?” There was a burning finger on her shoulder, steadily tapping her._

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“Hayley?” This time when she heard her name she froze. It wasn’t a dream. Elijah was in the room with her. She still sat in a kitchen chair with her head on the table. Elijah was tapping on her shoulder while saying her name. “Hayley.”

Hayley sat up quickly but soon regretted it when her head started to pound. She didn’t know how long she had been sleeping, it was still very dark outside the window across from her. “What time is it?” The light from the kitchen was on and it was poking into her retinas, she rubbed her eyes but it didn’t help much.  
“Around four.” He wasn’t touching her anymore but he might as well have been. She could still feel her shoulder burning from his touch. Her back ached from the position that she had been laying in, she tried moving it around to loosen the muscles. 

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” She really hoped that the noise that she had made when she came in hadn’t woken him. She could barely face him when she was sober in the light of day but now that she was a little buzzed and night raged outside, she didn’t know if she could control herself. 

When his hands touched her back and began to massage the muscles, she could just barely hold back a moan. His hands felt like heaven, getting into the knots that she didn’t know that she had. “No, I couldn’t sleep. I was up reading.” She couldn’t respond for the life of her, all words had evaporated at his touch.

She sat still for a couple minutes soaking in the pleasure but she quickly remembered where she was and got up from her chair, knocking Elijah’s hands away. She moved to the sink where there was an island between their bodies but it did nothing to dissipate the need growing in her. “Sorry, I don’t know what got into me earlier.”

He stood watching her but she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I think that you had a bad day that got worse with an unexpected houseguest. It’s a wonder you didn’t start drinking earlier.” He could always read her, every emotion was clear to him.

“How did you know I had a bad day?” She raised her eyes to his, her eyebrows raising as if challenging him. She hadn’t seen him in five years, but they slipped into their challenging masks like a pair of gloves. 

“When you walked in earlier this evening, you had a stain on your shirt. I could also smell the distinctive scent of puke on you. Your eyes were also red.” He didn’t say that he had heard her crying in her car this afternoon, it was showing in his eyes. 

“Yeah, it was a pretty shitty day.” An awkward silence washed over them broken only when he spoke next. “How was your run?”

“Good.” It might have only been one word, but that word spoke volumes to him. She could see the truth in his eyes, he knew where she had been this evening. She felt kind of guilty because she had been in another man’s bed only a few hours before and here she was fantasizing about him. Klaus no doubt had told him everything. 

“So….. You have a boyfriend.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement that felt like a stab to her heart. She didn’t know why she felt bad all of a sudden, it had been five years. She was welcome to move on but right now it didn’t feel like she would ever move on.

“I wouldn’t exactly call him a boyfriend, he’s more of a sort of friend.” Hayley wanted to defend her actions, sugar coating them to sound better in her ear.  
“A guy.”

“Yes.” Her heart was speeding up like in had in her dream. Her pulse a thunder in her ears. She could barely hear the words he spoke next, blaming it on her pulsing blood.

“I’m happy for you.” And with those words he turned away from her and left the room. She was left in a confused, horny state, not sure what to do next. He was happy for her. He wasn’t supposed to be happy, he was supposed to be furious, jealous. He was supposed to take her into his arms and kiss her senseless, so that she was so absorbed in him that she couldn’t even remember her own name. He was supposed-- Wait, what was she thinking, she didn’t want him to kiss her. She didn’t want to be in his arms no matter what her body craved.

Hayley closed her eyes and slowly breathed in and out for a few minutes until her pulse slowed. She placed her glass in the sink, not bothering to clean it, she could do it in the morning. Her bottle of tequila went back into her secret cabinet and when she closed the door, she wanted to close her feelings inside as well. Wanted to trap them down here so they would follow her when she went upstairs but when she got up to her room, her feeling kept her company. She knew that when she went to sleep, her earlier dream would come back. She was in for a long night.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about taking so long to update but I've been busy with summer classes. It might take me awhile to update but I will try to get it out as soon as possible. 
> 
> Thanks for reading

A few hours later when Hayley was awoken to the smell of pancakes, her stomach turned at the smell. She instantly regretted the tequila the night before. As she had expected, her sleep had been plagued by the dream that had started in the kitchen. She wished that she could forget it ever happened, she felt better after having talked to him and admitting that she was seeing someone.

When she got downstairs Hope was eating little bites of pancakes, Klaus was drinking something that suspiciously smelled like blood in a coffee cup and Elijah was washing dishes. Her gaze traveled over Elijah, he wore a new suit without a suit jacket. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his tie was thrown over his shoulder. He had a dish towel thrown over the other shoulder. 

There was coffee sitting in the coffee pot, though Hayley was sure it was only made because of her. When she had been human, she used to drink coffee like water and kept the habit when she became a hybrid. It was a very human like scene around her, as if this was just a typical family. 

“Good morning, Love. Though it’s a little late to be classified as morning. Late night?” Klaus had his constant smirk on his face, but the coffee cup covered half his face when he took a drink. His eyes watched her as she walked into the kitchen to get a cup from the cabinet, only a few inches separated her from Elijah when she poured herself a cup. 

Hope acknowledged her presence but she was busy eating. There was something that never changed about Hope and that was her ability to eat without speaking. They never had to worry about her speaking with food in her mouth, because food was more important to her than talking. Rudolf was laying at her feet, not knowing that there was maple syrup dripping on him. That will be fun to clean.

“Elijah was just telling me that our enemies have been vanquished. We can go home now.” Klaus took another little sip while Hayley glared at him. He knew that Elijah had already told her, but Hope didn’t know that. For Hope this was all new information. 

It had the effect that Klaus had wanted, Hope swallowed her mouthful of pancakes and didn’t pick up a new piece. “Go home? Aren’t we home, mommy?” She looked towards Hayley with a confused expression on her face.

Hayley and Klaus spoke at the same time. “Of course.” “This isn’t where you were born Hope.” Hope looked back and forth between her parents.   
“Where was I born?” She looked towards her father but it was her mother who answered. Klaus had been giving Hayley a look that said that he would willing tell her everything but Hayley didn’t want her daughter to know everything right now.

“New Orleans.” Hayley sighed, she hadn’t wanted to tell her daughter just now. She had wanted to wait a few more years but she hadn’t foretold that Elijah would come back. Speaking of Elijah, he was now drying the dishes, with his back towards the little family. He was listening to every word they said, slowly drying, trying to prolong it. “You were born in New Orleans.”

“New Orleans.” Hope slowly said the name of her birth city, massaging the vowels, testing it out. “Where is New Orleans?”

Klaus answer her this time, finally setting down his drink, the smell of blood has lessened so it must be gone. “It’s in Louisiana.” At her confused expression he clarified, “down south”. Hope had never been anywhere but Montana for the past five years, she didn’t know anything but Montana. 

“Are we going there?” Hope asked the room but she looked at her mother for the answer. Klaus seemed very interested is what she was going to say and Elijah stopped drying the dishes to hear her answer. Hayley didn’t know what to say, what was she supposed to say? Yes, we’re leaving everything that you have ever known to go back to a place where people tried to kill you. 

“Finish your breakfast, Hope.” Hayley knew that it wasn’t an answer and would only buy her a few more minutes because there wasn’t much of her breakfast left. The guys seemed to hold their breaths while Hope finished her breakfast. When she had finished she didn’t ask again, she just sat there staring at her mother. “Do you want to go there?” Hayley didn’t want to force her wants on her daughter, she wanted Hope it make up her own mind. She knew that someday they would go back, that one-day Hope would visit her home city. Hayley kneeled down beside her daughter to look her in the eye. 

Hope didn’t answer, she just simply nodded her head. Hope became restless, she hardly ever stopped moving. “Can I go outside?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t quite know how she felt about Hope’s answer. On one hand she never wanted to go back to New Orleans again but on the other she couldn’t see herself anywhere else. She watched as Hope hopped of her seat and ran out of the kitchen towards the door leading outside, Rudolf following behind. She stayed kneeling for a few minutes, hearing Hope laughing and running outside while Rudolf chased her. 

Klaus cleared his throat, “How long will it take for you to pack up? I could be ready tomorrow.”

Hayley clearly heard the words but for some reason her brain couldn’t understand them. “What?”  
“To go home.” He didn’t say ‘duh’ at the end but his tone defiantly implied it. 

“I’m not leaving.” Hayley got up to leave the room. “And neither is Hope.”

“We are leaving in two days whether you are packed or not.” She stopped at the doorway but didn’t look behind her before walking out the front door.


End file.
